Theme:“Navigating Through the Fog of Self-Organizing for Accelerated Innovation: A Study of Makeathons’ Product Development Process”

Abstract:“The literature is extensive on “the innovation journey” of new product development processes in traditional forms of organizing that span months or years. Recently, hackathons and makeathons suggest accelerating the innovation process, the “journey,” into a “sprint” of only a few days. Moreover, this accelerated process is self-organized, absent of structure or guidance. The existing innovation literature would expect these ambiguity-enhancing conditions to result in failure to produce new working products. Yet this process often leads to working, innovative products. To investigate this puzzle, we closely study the product development process of 13 projects across two assistive technology makeathons. We find divergent reactions to these conditions that play a critical role in enabling successful development of working products for individuals with disabilities under this extremely limited time frame or not. Some projects navigated through the fog of self-organizing for innovation by “setting a course,” reducing ambiguity, while other projects were “tacking” through the fog, sustaining the self-organizing process and ambiguity. From a temporal perspective, the same time frame was interpreted very differently: the course setting projects compressed time whereas the tacking projects deepened time, perceiving this time frame to be discontinuous to their past and future ones. Only tacking projects were able to produce functioning new products by the end of the makeathon. This study contributes to theories on innovation processes, self-organizing, and temporality."A

Abstract: One of the central ideas in the
Behavioral Theory of the Firm is that when organizations’ performance falls
below aspirations, search is triggered to find solutions to the performance
shortfall. However, empirical results on this triggering effect have been
mixed. We argue and show based on a computational model, that these mixed
results arise because aspirations not only function as a triggering mechanism
but also encode the performance feedback into a simpler binary (satisfactory/
unsatisfactory) format better suited to boundedly
rational decision makers. Our encoding view of aspirations not only explains
prior mixed results but also leads to specific predictions under what
conditions search will occur.

Theme: “Is it me or you? – How reactions to abusive supervision are shaped by leader behavior

and follower perceptions”

Abstract: There is a growing interest in understanding the perceptual and attributional processes involved in reactions towards abusive leadership. Our research examines the influence of different leadership (constructive, laissez faire, low and high abusive) behaviors on follower reactions in two experimental studies. We also conducted a field study to validate our results further. Specifically, we focus on the role of perception of abusive supervision as a mediator (in the experimental studies) between leader abusive behavior and reactions as well as attribution as a moderator in the relationship between perception of abusive supervision and reactions. After conducting a pre-study, data from several samples were collected using first, a two point experimental design with vignettes (Study 1 and 2) and, second, a cross-sectional field study (Study 3). Regression analyses using bootstrapping as well as moderated regressions were used to test the hypotheses. Experimental variation of leadership behavior results in systematic differences in perceptions and reactions towards behaviors. Perception partly mediates the relationship between leadership behavior and reactions (Study 1 and 2). We also found that attribution moderates the relationship between the perception of abusive supervision and reactions in both Study 2 and 3. The differences in results between the studies reflect that in Study 1 and 2 abusive behavior was manipulated and in Study 3 actual leader behavior was assessed. The research presented here adds to our understanding of the processes involved in how abusive leadership influences reactions and the role that followers’ perceptions and attributions play in this relationship. Our research can help leaders to better understand their own role and the followers’ role for the perception of abusive supervision and reactions towards those behaviors. Our results highlight that the avoidance of abusive supervision should be taken seriously and followers’ perception and suffering is not only due to subjective judgment but reflects actual differences in behavior. However, in practice, abusive behaviors might sometimes be ambiguous.

Abstract: This study examines the decision by an entrant to form an alliance with a R&D market incumbent who is already present with active R&D projects. We examined the collaborative entry decisions of 62 biopharmaceutical firms into 189 R&D markets over a 10-year period. While accounting for firm, dyad, and market-level influences, our analysis reveals that increasing levels of R&D multimarket contact (MMC) facilitates entrant-market incumbent R&D alliance formation. Furthermore, when a market incumbent has footholds in shared markets that constitute the entrant’s spheres of influence, the likelihood of R&D alliance formation between them increases. R&D MMC thus facilitates alliance formation in exploration contexts by reducing uncertainty and raising the prospects of future collaborative gains. Implications for alliance formation, multimarket contact and competitive dynamics are discussed.

Abstract: "Standard
business training programs aim to boost the incomes of the millions of self-employed business owners in developing countries by
teaching basic financial and marketing practices,
yet the impacts of such programs are mixed.
We tested whether a psychology-based
personal initiative training approach, which
teaches a proactive mindset and focuses on
entrepreneurial behaviors,
could have more success. A randomized controlled trial in Togo assigned microenterprise owners to a control group
(n = 500), a leading business training
program (n = 500), or a personal initiative
training program (n = 500). Four follow-up
surveys tracked outcomes for firms over 2 years
and showed that personal initiative training
increased firm profits by 30%, compared with a
statistically insignificant 11%for traditional
training. The training is cost-effective, paying
for itself within 1 year."

Abstract: "How
do organizational actors in local entrepreneurial ecosystems understand their
role in tackling “grand challenges” and effecting social change? National
governments and supranational institutions increasingly promote
entrepreneurship as a solution to socio-economic disparities across
individuals, communities and regions. Yet, despite impressive growth in public
and scholarly attention to the latter, we know surprisingly little about how,
and to what extent, such initiatives succeed or fail in achieving social
impact. This paper argues that a primary reason for the inconclusive evidence
is that, although scholarship has recognized the multifaceted nature of the
input (different forms of entrepreneurship), it assumes a much narrower
conceptualization of the outcome (social impact), without adequately examining
how organizations construe their role in effecting social change. This paper
builds on recent theoretical frameworks for understanding the role of private
organizations in positive social change by studying an initiative to promote
entrepreneurship in disadvantaged communities in France (colloquially known as banlieues). I take a grounded-theory approach,
relying on 46 interviews with entrepreneurs and organizations that support
entrepreneurs(hip) in the banlieues, as well as archival and observational
data. I theorize that what appears to be a broad policy towards reducing
community inequalities through entrepreneurship is translated locally by
organizations as two distinct approaches: a means- versus an ends-based
approach. Notably, the latter constitute divergent organizational theories of
social impact, based on different (1) targets of impact, (2) measures of
impact, and (3) identified barriers to achieving impact, across multiple levels
(individual, community, societal). Ultimately, means- versus ends-based
theories carry distinct implications for evaluating organizations’ social
impact. The paper contributes to a cross-level perspective on the relationship
between organizations, entrepreneurship, and positive social change."

Theme: “When
Stepping Up Also Means Stepping Down: Managerial Role Transitions for Members
of High Reliability Occupations”

Abstract: "In past literature on work
transitions into managerial roles, a key challenge for newcomers is assumed to
be the increase in responsibility that the new job entails. However, little
attention has been paid to individuals’ occupational backgrounds before
transitioning. To better understand managerial transitions, this study compares
the shifting responsibilities of supervisors coming from a high-reliability
occupation, where small errors can lead to serious consequences, versus a
low-reliability occupation, where such concerns do not exist. Drawing mainly on
interviews with former Paris subway drivers (high-reliability) and station
agents (low-reliability) now promoted to supervisors, we analyze the change in
“responsibility” experienced during such a transition. We find that this
responsibility has multiple facets, some of which actually lessen as one moves
up. For subway drivers, stepping up into a managerial role entails lower task
significance, lower temporal immediacy, and lower task independence; creating a
certain loss of what we label “personal” responsibility. By contrast, former
station agents reported no such loss. Building on the imprinting literature, we
suggest that workers coming from high-reliability occupations might experience a
similar “managerial blues.” Overall, our findings shed light on how specific
occupational backgrounds shape the experience of responsibility when moving up
the hierarchy."